Style

My entire life, style has been something personal. It’s never been about wearing what every other person is wearing, it’s been about wearing what I wanted to wear. When I was 8 I was obsessed with leopard print. My aunt bought me a leopard print velvet leotard, and a matching leopard sarong. I wore that thing every where my parents would let me.For me, clothes are supposed to make YOU happy. If I’m going to have to look at them all day, I want to feel a little twinge of excitement every time I pull something out of my closet to wear it.

But I can also tell you the exact moment that clothes stopped wearing me, and I started wearing them.

My sophomore year of High school; December 28th, 2007. That was the night he made his choice to flip my life upside down. That was the night that I went from being the insecure little girl who followed other people’s opinions searching for approval, and decided I was safer doing my own thing. It wasn’t an instant transformation, but it slowly happened. On my sixteenth birthday, when we went to the police, something in me clicked and realized that I had a say in my own life. He could make choices, but so could I. He chose his action, I chose to go to the police and protect other girls. And then I chose to cut off all my hair. My mom took me to a salon in our hometown and the hairstylist fought with me over whether or not she should allow me to cut it. Finally I convinced her it was my hair (but I’m pretty sure I cried at that point) and she did it.

A few weeks later, my mom and I were shopping in Dallas and decided on impulse to go into a salon and get our hair cut. We let the guy do whatever he wanted to it, and I ended up with a graduated bob. I don’t think I’ve ever been as confident as I was with that short hair. It was like he had somehow shaved off all that guilt, pain and turmoil with his magic scissors. I promise I’m not someone super attached to my hair, but it was so freeing to rid myself of the things that had attracted him to me.


And with that new confidence came my new approach to clothes. I started wearing what I wanted to wear, not what I thought would get me attention from whoever.
It was like magic. All of a sudden these fantastic, delicious outfits were in my closet waiting to be worn. Stripes, owls, plaid, leggings, cardigans, vests, skinny jeans everywhere. ( As a side note. I normally hate when people refer to clothes as delicious because it makes no sense. How could they be delicious? You aren’t supposed to eat them. And if you are eating them and they taste good? ISSUES. But it describes it perfectly so we’re going to leave it. Just know I don’t eat my clothes. )

And so became my love of style. I devour fashion magazines like they’re candy, am constantly on blogs looking at what other people are wearing and using what I learned working in retail to figure out how I want to present myself.
I guess to know what your personal style is, you have to know what defines it. For me, it’s run by being comfy, having them flatter me, cover me and not overpowering me.
To sum it up, what I’ve learned about personal style in the almost twenty years I’ve been alive:
Personal style isn’t about money. It’s more than walking into a store and pulling an outfit off the mannequin. Anyone can look good doing that. It’s being able to find an outfit you feel good in, at any price point. An outfit that is an outward expression of who you are. When you can do that, then you have style.

P.S. Here’s where I get a lot of my inspiration from when I’m in need of a little help:
http://www.thedaybookblog.com/
http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/
http://runningonhappiness.blogspot.com/
http://ramzrevell.blogspot.com/
http://www.glamour.com
http://www.luckymag.com/
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/